


aperture

by loyaulte_me_lie



Series: camera obscura [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Photographer, M/M, Modern AU, Politics, Pre-Slash, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 06:45:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19167934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loyaulte_me_lie/pseuds/loyaulte_me_lie
Summary: “Okay,” Enjolras looks out of the window, at the lights blurring through the rain. “You’ve got my number, now. Let me know.” // Enjolras sees the magazine cover.





	aperture

**Author's Note:**

> No warnings :D

**June 2010**

The first thing he knows about it is some journalist, asking a question. He’s standing on the steps of a town hall somewhere outside Rouen, chatting to a couple of women from the Q&A that’s just finished and when they smile thank yous and leave, he turns to find a recorder in his face.

“Can I help you?” he asks, polite, gritting his teeth.

“What do you think of your Le Figaro Magazine cover?” the journalist asks. “Bit of a departure from tradition, eh?”

Enjolras raises his eyebrows. “Well, considering the fact my campaign office cleared it, I don’t see that there’s any problem.”

The journalist frowns. “You haven’t seen it?”

“No,” Enjolras shrugs, wonders why it’s being brought up. ̦Éponine didn’t mention anything at the morning briefing, so he assumes that the cover is satisfactory despite R’s strange artistic choices on the day.

“That’s why we have interns,” Éponine deadpans, appearing at his shoulder in a clicking of heels and sarcastic efficiency. “Is there anything else you need to ask M. Enjolras, or can I steal him away? We need to get on the road.”

The journalist quickfires another couple of questions that Enjolras gives his rote answers to, and then gets in the car with Éponine. The second the door shuts, she hands him a magazine. He doesn’t ask how she knows. Éponine is all kinds of magical; he accepted long ago that she has obviously inherited Combeferre’s apparent mind-reading skills.

He looks down and nearly loses his breath for a second. It’s him, his face looking intently out of the shiny cover, but he’s…god, he looks intense, he looks as though he’s glowing. His hair is half-loose around his face, and he leans on one elbow on the side of the armchair, obviously in the middle of explaining something, one hand in the air gesturing. His shoulders are a loose, relaxed line, and his red socks are bunched up around his ankles, one leg tossed carelessly over the other. After a moment, he flips to the actual interview, and there he is again, hand in hair, laughing, his shoulders curling in on themselves in amusement. His smile is soft. You can see the small tattoo on the underside of his wrist, though you can’t see what it says from this angle. He’s never seen himself like this before, wonders at what R has done. Departure from tradition indeed.

“Your approval ratings have soared,” Éponine says, not looking up from her phone. “People love it. Don’t look so pissed off.”

“I don’t look pissed off.”

“Well, remove the frown from your face if you’re not pissed off, it’s highly misleading.”

“I can’t help my concentrating face.”

“I’m sending you to one of Courf’s drama workshops if you try and use that petty excuse on me. Everyone can help their faces.”

Enjolras wisely decides to shut up and stop digging himself into a hole. He puts the magazine aside and picks up the speech for the next campaign stop, taking a pencil out of his suit pocket and beginning to write.

**

It’s not until that evening in the hotel room that he takes out R’s card, turns it over in his hands. It’s just plain black, bent at the corners, with a telephone number, an email address, and the letter R in multi-coloured font. He glances back down at the magazine, set carefully on the table, and then girds himself, types the number into his phone, lets it ring.

Eventually, it picks up. “Lo,” someone slurs. “Who is this?”

“R?” Enjolras asks.

“Politician-man.”

It’s gratifying that he knows who it is immediately.

“I _do_ have a name,” Enjolras points out, sitting down in the chair by the window and curling his sock-feet up under him. The rain spatters a rhythm against the dark glass.

“Yes, I am aware, it’s fucking everywhere at the moment.”

“My team are good at their job, what can I say?”

“Lucky for some.”

A pause. Enjolras listens to the rasp of R’s breathing down the phone, then R says, “Not that I’m not thrilled you decided to call, but did you have any particular reason, or was it just to listen to me lie here and watch TV like some weird creepy stalker?”

“I wasn’t aware it was particularly stalkerish behaviour to watch one’s own television,” Enjolras replies, then, “I saw the magazine, earlier.”

“It went out with the papers yesterday.”

“I know. We’ve been busy. And I don’t tend to read the pieces about myself, unless there’s something dire one of the team has flagged that I need to be aware of. So no, I didn’t see it.”

“I’m hurt, Apollo.”

“What did you just call me?”

He can practically hear R’s eyeroll. “You’re basically the sun god, okay, with all the hair. Go with it. Everyone needs a _nom de guerre._ ”

“I’m not fighting a battle.”

“Neither am I. Still a useful thing to have.”

“Why R, then?”

“I live my life in capitals. My surname’s Grantaire.”

“Capital R?” Enjolras groans, piecing it together. “That’s a terrible pun.”

“My mentor had a shitty sense of humour what can I say? So, spill me the beans. What did you think?”

“It’s…different.”

“Duh.”

“Good different.” Enjolras looks over at it again, at the photograph of himself laughing, feels something unfurl between his ribs. “I like it.  I really like it. And Éponine says it’s done the world of good for the campaign, so, thanks.”

“What can I say? I’m expecting a cabinet position and a hunky bodyguard in recompense for my artistic genius,” R says, and Enjolras thinks he sounds pleased, as much as you can tell through the sarcasm, catches his brain before it can over-analyse the comment about the hunky bodyguard. It means nothing. It can’t mean anything. He has an election to win, he doesn’t have _time_ to be going moon-eyed over a photographer he has met a grand total of once, an undoubtedly very talented photographer who makes him laugh and pushes him out of his comfort zone and… _no._ No. Unhelpful. Unproductive. This is ridiculous. 

“Well,” Enjolras starts, thinking about the idea he’d raised with Éponine and Courfeyrac, who’d met them in Rouen for dinner after the school visit and the second open meeting of the day, “Cabinet position is out of my hands currently, but we do have space for a campaign photographer. If you want. I know you’re probably busy, but the team were impressed with your work and I, yes, well. If you’d like.”

He holds his breath, digs his nails into his thigh and tells himself that he made up the little hitch in R’s breathing. It’s a work thing, a sensible tactical decision. It is nothing personal. If he tells himself that enough, perhaps he’ll start to believe it.

“Really?”

“Yes,” Enjolras says. “Yes.”

“I’ll think about it,” R says, after a moment of quiet. “But I’m flattered. I really am.”

“Okay,” Enjolras looks out of the window, at the lights blurring through the rain. “You’ve got my number, now. Let me know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Help I've fallen into an obsession with this awesome book Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston which is cake in book form, and I'm dealing with feelings by writing stories in which there is NO angst. Because I can't do angst right now. There was also a cool thunderstorm earlier. I'll stop talking now.
> 
> Come Tumblr with me: @barefoot_pianist


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